Speaking Truth!

1And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. 2He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. 3He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be set free for a short time.

Revelation 20:1-3

When is it acceptable to lie? If you want to be more like Satan than God then lying is the best way to do it. The Bible even says that Satan is the father of lies. If Satan is the father of lies, then he has many, many children. Lying has become a fundamental part of our world today.

I stand ready to criticize and condemn lying unless I am the one doing the lying and I do it because it is social acceptable. I don’t tell lies in an attempt to deceive, but frankly I do tell lies to be polite. “How are you today?” “Oh, I’m just fine.” Even if I have a splitting headache and find it difficult to stand up I claim to be “fine.” There are of course lots of other lies that are not just acceptable in our world, but are expected.

Now I’m not saying that God expects us to offend each other, but why does our polite conversation have to be built on “white lies?” It is because our world is ruled by Satan. I know this may sound like a meaningless exercise, but try to live one day without speaking one of the “white lies” of everyday conversation. Please don’t spend the day saying things that upset everyone, but simply filter your words and refrain from the untruths.

When Satan is bound as mentioned in Revelation 20, he will not be able to deceive the nations anymore. There is one thing you can trust. Satan is not bound today and he is deceiving the nations right now. If you made a list of the worldwide deceptions that you read about every day in the newspaper how long would that list be?

Now imagine that those deceptions are all exposed and banished. Imagine truth being the standard in all conversation, even in polite daily speech. Imagine no one speaking a word that is not true. When Satan is removed and bound what a different world this will be.

When truth reigns supreme in my life, my speech and my thoughts then I will find it much easier to pray. If I pray using the normal polite speech of this world I am hindered at every turn by speaking words to God that are not true!